Late to the conversation & way too much to type here. I'm a long time RC guy & front & center on this issue. Feel free to PM me & we can chat by phone if you like. The big picture is:
- Dec-22/Jan-23 the RC world kind of hit the wall when TC revoked the prior longstanding MAAC exemption. Depending on who you believe, some naughty boys were flying where they should not have been. MAAC (IMO) was complicit for incompetence, poor records management & lack of enforcement. Bottom line is TC basically said the organization violated the conditions, Finito.
- so all MAAC sanctioned fields had to re-apply for SOC one by one. They started from easier (uncontrolled airspace, no proximity to aerodromes...) to more difficult settings, some of which are still shut down & will never see the light of day IMO.
- at that point mainstream RC was essentially labelled as drones. It was a convenient & familiar category for TC but tremendously unfair to mainstream RC. The net result is in order to fly anything >250g you need to pass RPAS Basic exam, obey all RPAS restrictions, register the models with TC at 5$/per, fly <400'AGL at all times, line of site only, conduct a site survey every flying session, , compile a logbook blah,blah,blah).
- meanwhile typically larger RC planes (the vast majority) that easily exceed 400'AGL were essentially grounded. Contests, fun flys, events, anything where a Joe Public citizen may show up was cancelled because it was another level of paperwork approval (think like a drone flying over a football game, that's how they viewed it). So it was a very quiet & sh*tty summer. Must disgruntlement across the land. Many guys packing it in especially old timers. But MAAC promised good things were coming.
- time forward to literally last week. After lots of promises & rumoor's & forum squabbling (my bitterness creeping in now) MAAC indicated their big announcement. Details still pending so the knife continues to turn but - to return to flying >400'AGL requires Advanced Certificate, an observer, a re-review of MAAC SOC sites to approve any increased max altitude limit, blinky lights mounted on the wing. There may be some relaxations on MAAC sites but TBD. IOW I think we just got shoehorned into essentially what was Advanced drone requirements all along. Thanks... I guess? Supposedly MAAC membership discounts the ADV ground school $400? but not associated other dinger fees, exam, flight instructor... another couple hundred $?
I'll stop here before I start using potty-mouth words of what I really think of this mess. RC aviation as we knew it is a bygone dream (in Canada).
BTW I don't think Crown land or private land has anything to do with it. If <250g you can generally fly it with less restrictions than a few years ago. But >250g you are in RPAS domain & the app tells you where you can & cannot fly (outside of MAAC fields). Be aware that above Fed/Prov parks there may be city/muni restrictions no-fly zones.
